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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23533936">Winners Never Quit</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/jollyswoosh/pseuds/jollyswoosh'>jollyswoosh</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Final Space (Cartoon)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Character Study, Dadspeed, Found Family, Gen, Kinda, Prose Poem, Suicide mention, adopted family, fixing each other</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 16:00:45</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>469</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23533936</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/jollyswoosh/pseuds/jollyswoosh</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Gary and Little Cato are the same person at different points in their pain.</p><p>A rumination on two characters, but mostly on Gary.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Gary Goodspeed &amp; Little Cato</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>28</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Winners Never Quit</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em> count it a blessing </em>
</p><p>
  <em>that you're such a failure</em>
</p><p>Sometimes, it hurts Gary to even look at Little Cato, because it feels so much like looking at himself.</p><p>The boy is like a raw nerve of emotions, volatile and painful, and Gary remembers that feeling; curled in on yourself in the middle of the night while loneliness and anger claw trenches into your back. Fourteen is a hard age at the best of times -- it's even harder when everything's a mess, and your dad is gone, and you're certain, you just <em> know </em> that it's <em> your fault,  </em></p><p>
  <em> your fault,  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> your fault.  </em>
</p><p>You almost want it to be your fault, because if it's something you did, then it's something you can fix. And if you fix it, maybe the gnawing emptiness will go away. </p><p>You'd do almost anything to make that feeling go away.</p><p>And you end up doing at least a little bit of everything a little bit too much, get yourself a bit of a reputation and a one-way ticket to the guidance counselor's office, where she smiles like it's something she's practiced and asks you in hushed tones if you want to kill yourself. You tell her no and you mean it -- but she never asks you if you <em> want to be alive </em>.</p><p>Their situations aren't a perfect parallel and it doesn't feel quite so bad anymore with 20 years of separation, at least not most days. But Little Cato is still right there in the thick of it, heart hemorrhaging on his sleeve and something to prove. It kills Gary to see it. He can’t look away.</p><p>When he decides to be Little Cato’s adopted dad, it’s more than just trying to convince the kid to stay, it’s more than just his genuine affection for a boy in pain. It’s a chance to stop something before it starts, to address the infection before the limb turns green and gangrenous, to keep Little Cato from doing something dangerous for a chance to feel nothing at all.</p><p>It’s a chance to fix it.</p><p>What he doesn’t expect, and what he feels stupid for not expecting, was exactly what it fixes. Something changed when he went from Little Cato’s friend to Little Cato’s dad, and it wasn’t their relationship, not really. It was the realization that with every reassuring hand on the boy’s shoulder, with every tired, desperate hug, the yawning hollow inside him got just that much smaller. </p><p>Gary hopes beyond hope that, even with Avocato back, Little Cato still wants him to be his dad.</p><p>Because Gary had felt like a Russian doll, with that sad teen inside him just one layer down for so many years, and now finally, <em> finally </em>, that boy can say that he wants </p><p>to be </p><p>alive.</p><p>
  <em>your second chance might </em>
</p><p>
  <em> never have come </em>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Title and italicized lyrics at the beginning and end of the work are from the song "Winners Never Quit" by Pedro the Lion. I like to listen to that song and cry while thinking about how similar Gary and Little Cato are.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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